Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Favorite powder for your 257 Roberts

What powder has giving you your best results in your 257 Roberts?

Thanks

Varget

IMR-4064.Rick.

I've had 4 .257s. There has not been much consistency gun to gun in what they liked.

With a new .257, I'd work up to 44 grains of IMR 4064 with the 75 grain Sierra HP, up to 48 grains of H4831 under 100 grain Nosler B-tips and partitions, and up to 43 grains of H414 with 120 grain partitions.

Then step back and evaluate.

I've had 2 .257s that were very finicky but did eventualy shoot very well indeed once I found their load. I had 1 that absolutely never would shoot even after a trip back to the factory. The 4th was a used gun that got me by for a while but I never really did any load workup for it, I just used the previous owner's recipe.

Tom

I started with IMR-4064 then went to H-414 and haven't gone back.

Looking at running the 120NP.

H4831sc

H4350 and RL17 in that order.

R22 seems to work very well with the 100gr. up to the 120s. If you have some give it a try you'll like it.
Mouse

H100V

Mine hated that stuff! Nothing under 3"

I've had good success with Hogdon's max book load of 44gr IMR4831 and a 120gr Partition. Velocity was right at 2,800FPS in a 22" M700. I plan on running 115gr Partitions and H4350 this year, only because of local availability. I don't suspect the deer will notice much difference.

I use H414 in mine.

Couldn't get either of mine to like 100v but H4350 works well. RL17 has my interest though.

imr 4064

H100V, for one of my 257s, the last time I shot it on paper it was a 3 shot group with the 115 Nosler Partition and it was under 1 inch (a good group for me) so I took it antelope hunting. The other 257 does not like the 115 NPT, and appears to shoot best with H4350 (but it is very finicky) while the other rifle shoots most things better than I can hold it.

H100V gives greater velocity than any other powder I've used in the 257 (e.g H4831, H4350, H414, IMR 4350). BUT -- H100V is not one of the extreme powders of Hodgdon so it may be temperature sensitive. One rifle closely matches the velocities Hodgdon gives on their website. The other 257 shows about 100 fps less velocity with the same loads.

What this means is that every rifle is different and what one likes the other may not. So try more than one powder and see which powder/bullet combination your rifle likes.

Primers also may give different results, one of my rifles seems to do better with CCI BR2 primers over CCI 200s.

H4350 and H4831 for mine!

I have loaded for over a dozen .257's, and the most consistent powder for 100-120 grain bullets has been 4350, either IMR or H. Ramshot Hunter has also done very well in more than one rifle with the same weight range, but since it's relatively new I haven't had a chance to try it with in as many rifles.

With bullets under 100 grains 4895 (either IMR or H) and Varget have done very well.

WW760 and IMR4350 with 115-120 grain bullets

IMR 4350 in both my 257s with everything from 87 -117 gr. bullets. I did not have good results with 4831.

dave